Who Will Save Your Soul?
by daleksigma
Summary: Everything has a price tag. If Missy had offered to tell the Doctor where Gallifrey was if he took her army, he may have chosen differently. AU where the Doctor and Missy travel together with the army of Cybermen, conquering the universe.
1. Everything You Loved

The Doctor could not accept this. _I need you to know that we're not so different. I need my friend back. _She was lying—she was manipulating him—it was a trick. After all the two of them had been through, he wouldn't—he couldn't—believe it.

"I have asked you time and time again to travel with me. Why now—why suddenly go to all this effort just to—get me back?" he demanded.

There was a part of him—perhaps the same part that had cried over the Master's body all those centuries ago on the Valliant—that wanted the Master to be telling the truth. He wanted her to travel with him. But he didn't believe it.

Missy gave a little shrug. "If you take my gift, I'll tell you where it _i-_is," she said in a singsong voice.

"You didn't answer my question."

She leaned in closer to his face. He took a step back.

"That's because your question doesn't need answering, love. I've always wanted you. But you were too busy doting over earth girls and trying to _save the planet_ and trying to _thwart _me at every turn." She smiled sweetly. "Now how about it? If I throw in the location of Gallifrey, will you take the army?"

The Doctor took another step back.

"Oh, come on, you know you want to accept my offer. Just say it. Mr. President."

"I don't _want_ it! I've never _wanted_ an army."

"Oh, please, we've been through this already. Anyway, you're only going to find out where Gallifrey is if you take it." She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "And me with you in your lonely old TARDIS."

She was touching his shoulder. She was right there, right next to him. He could smell her hair. He knew he should pull away, but he didn't.

"And if I…take your army—how do I know you'll be honest with me? How do I know that you won't lie about its location?"

He should pull away. He should walk away now. But he was still standing right here, in contact with her. It was more comforting than it should have been. It had been so long since he had felt the touch of one of his own species. Hers had been the first double heartbeat besides his own that he had felt in over a millennium. He couldn't move away.

But the Master could. She stood up and danced back. "Well, you don't," she gave another of her cute little shrugs. "But I want to go home someday too, you know."

"Doctor, you can't actually be thinking of doing this. An army." Clara called from where she was still wrapped around the now-emotionless Danny Pink.

The Doctor hadn't forgotten about her. Missy's presence was just so…overpowering, he couldn't concentrate correctly. He had given up trying to get Clara away from the Cyber-converted PE teacher. If he hadn't snapped her yet, he wasn't going to.

She pulled herself away from Danny slowly, her eyes still full of tears. "Doctor, if you take it she wins. After everything she's done. You can't let that happen."

The Doctor looked down at the bracelet Missy had placed on his wrist, then up at Clara.

Missy huffed a breath. "And the woman holding you leash is in the way." She twirled her upbrella around and pointed it at Danny. "How 'bout I throw in the boyfriend as a little bonus. Just for her."

Clara stepped forward. "You'll—you'll give me Danny back."

"Yes, I suppose that was his name, wasn't it? I throw in the boy Danny and everyone lives happily every after."

"You can bring him back," Clara repeated.

""Course I can. Simple."

It was Clara's turn to look uncertain.

"You see, Clara?" the Doctor said. "That's the choice. An offer too good to refuse, and a price too high to pay." He rounded on Missy. "But that's not really a choice, is it? Because anyone would do this to save everything they love. Everyone has a price tag. Yes, I'll take your army. And yes, you'll give us back PE and Gallifrey."

Tears were welling up in Clara's eyes. He hated when she did that. It was like they were leaking, and it made him so miserable to see it. Why should leaky eyes make him feel so miserable?

"You can't do this just for me," Clara said.

"I can, and I will. And besides, it's not just for you. I get something out of it too—"

"And someone!" Missy cut in.

He ignored her, however much the thought made his belly jump. "Now chin up, Clara. We came here to get your boyfriend back from the dead, and now we have a way to do it. Job done."

Clara shook her head. "Not like this."

"It's the only way!"

Clara's expression didn't change. The Doctor looked away.

Missy was watching the exchange with a slight smile on her face, leaning against a gravestone. The Doctor glared at her. She swung her umbrella around and walked up to the Doctor.

"Just give the order, Doctor," she leaned in closer.

Did she want another kiss? Should he kiss her now?

But she leaned back. "Give the order, and then—what was it you said?" she affected a puzzled expression. "We could travel together. It would be my _honor_."

"Don't you dare—don't you dare repeat that."

"I mean it. I'd hop right into your little old TARDIS and travel the stars right beside you. Plus a few billion Cybermen."

"We—both of us?"

She put her hand on his hearts. "Together."

He could feel them beating harder in his chest. The Doctor put a hand on her wrist gently, holding her hand against his hearts. "_My honor_," he said softly.

He turned away from both of them and held up the command bracelet. "Cybermen! Into my TARDIS," he said roughly. "NOW!"

The army of Cybermen turned at once to face the blue police box. Then, one by one, with a sound of stomping and clicking, they lined up single file in front of the double doors.

The Doctor glared at Missy, then stomped off after them. He wanted this to be her fault. She had made him do this. It was her choice, her plan—but he knew it wasn't. It was always him. He was the one who made the difficult choices so others didn't have to. He saved Danny so Clara wouldn't have to. He took an army to get his home back. Sometimes there were no good choices, but you still had to choose. He clicked his fingers and the TARDIS doors snapped open.

Missy grinned in delight and clapped. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another bracelet, identical to the one she had given the Doctor.

"Catch!" she threw the bracelet to Clara, who caught it deftly. She winked at the Doctor. "Don't worry, love, it's just a plain old teleport bracelet. Yours is a special gift from me to you." She raised her voice. "Put in on his wrist and tell him to push the little green button."

Clara clasped her hands around Danny's wrist. "You hear her? Come home to me."

The Cyberman's face was expressionless.

"Oh, what a shame," Missy said. "Seems he doesn't want to come home to his love after all. Oh, wait. What love? He hasn't got any emotions, dear!"

The Doctor glared at her some more.

The whole graveyard was silent for a moment.

"Danny—" Clara said.

"Yes."

The Doctor spun around.

Danny raised his arm. "Yes."

Clara latched onto him again. The Doctor imagined that must be very uncomfortable, hugging a Cyberman. Then Danny touched his finger to his wrist, and disappeared in a flash of green.

Missy looked a bit miffed. "Well, that was surprising. Don't you worry, love, he's only gone back to my little hard drive. He'll figure out how to get back in time. With his plain old boring body too, but I guess that's what you want, isn't it?"

A silence fell over the graveyard as Clara stared at the stop where Danny had vanished, soon to return any second. The Doctor suddenly felt he didn't want to see the reunion. He didn't deserve it. He pushed past the Cyberman at the front of the line to get to the TARDIS doors.

"Doctor—" Clara said.

"Go home with PE, Clara," the Doctor said without looking at her.

"No, I was just—"

The Doctor turned around. "Yes?"

"Thank you. For Danny."

The Doctor looked at the ground, unable to face her.

_Everyone has a price tag._ And Clara's had just been paid.

Missy clapped her hands and walked over to the Doctor, swinging her umbrella. He ducked into the TARDIS. The familiar hum of the console room did nothing to soften his expression. The old girl would hate him bringing the Cybermen in here—she hadn't even let him put weapons on her during the Time War—but he had no choice, now. No choice. No choice.

Missy appeared a moment later, standing just inside the double doors, leaning on the railing. "Well, that's the boyfriend all sorted."

The Doctor just glared at her. He didn't seem to be able to do anything else.

"Oh, come one, smile. It's your birthday."

The Doctor rounded on her. "I don't want this army. That's not—not why I'm doing this."

Missy shrugged and made a silly face. "If y'say so."

"I'm saving Danny. I'm finding Gallifrey. Isn't it enough for you that I'm doing this? What more do you want?"

"I think someone might be lying to himself about his motives just a teensy bit?"

The Doctor slammed a fist against the console. The TARDIS whirred angrily. He quickly rubbed the spot he had hit. Then he shouted at his bracelet, "You, Cybermen! Inside, now!"

He grimaced as he watched the army march through the doors, past him and Missy, and out the door on the other side of the console room. The TARDIS's whirrs became much higher pitched, but nothing happened.

As the last Cyberman entered, Missy leaned her head on his shoulder, an eager look on her face. "Where to now, Mr. President?"


	2. Beauty, Divinity, Hatred

Somehow, the Doctor had managed to allow Missy to wrap her arms around him from behind and rest her chin on his shoulder. He didn't know how it had happened, but there she was. He suspected he'd been someone complicit in it.

He shouldn't have let her do that. He extricated himself from her arms and turned around, leaning against the TARDIS console so he could face her.

"It's your army," he snarled. "Why don't you decide?"

Her face fell. What had she expected—for him to be happy with this?

"No, Doctor. I think you should decide. Let the birthday boy pick where to have his party."

He turned away from her and walked around the console, pretending to adjust the stabilizers—or at least, he was pretty sure it was the stabilizers. He usually never bothered setting them.

"Does that work on all your little human friends?" Missy followed him around the console. "'Cause I don't wanna be rude, but I know exactly what you're doing and you're not changing a single thing."

It had been too long since the Doctor had traveled with Time Lord. It was such a joy—such a relief—to be standing next to someone who knew—who really understood—the technology of the TARDIS. It would, however, be unbearable if she found out that he felt that way.

So he continued to scowl. "We're going to the Dalek camps," he announced. "Your idea. Not mine."

Missy rolled her eyes. "Well, if you must be so unoriginal, go right ahead. Set the coordinates."

The Doctor once again circled the TARDIS console, deliberately walking away from her as quickly as possible. Of course, she followed him, watching every lever-flip and dial-set he performed. Surprisingly, she made no comment.

He stopped in front of the scanner, one hand on the dematerialization lever. Had it been Clara standing beside him, he would have smiled at her and seen her inflated eyes with all their makeup (though, to be honest, he could never quite tell whether she was wearing it or not) and her big smile.

Now it was Missy who met his eyes, and while she might have been smiling, he wasn't. Daleks and the Master. 1300 years since the Time War, and suddenly it felt as if he had never stopped fighting. No matter how hard he tried, nothing changed.

"If we do this, you'll tell me the coordinates of Gallifrey," he said.

"Why so keen to go home already? The fun's just begun." She winked at him. "We both know I'm the only one you _missed_ there."

"I—"

"I think someone's feeling a bit _guilty_…"

"_No_." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Not guilty. Never guilty. I did what I had to—for them. I had to save them."

"Sure you did."

Why did she have to do that? Every inch of her voice dripping with sarcasm, saying exactly the right thing to make him feel horrible. And she knew it too.

"You ran away!" he shouted, jabbing a finger at her.

She jumped back in mock surprise.

"You have nothing to say to me about the Time War. You deserted the Time Lords when they needed you. I kept fighting and you—you shut up and don't say a thing about that to me ever again!" And, his anger having run its course, he sagged, leaning a hand against the TARDIS console, his head bowed. He was surprised at how tired his voice sounded when he spoke next. "When we're done with this, you'll tell me where Gallifrey is, and we're going home."

"We?"

"We."

He flipped the dematerialization lever, and the familiar wheezing of the TARDIS filled the air. Missy cackled.

The Doctor fought back the deluge of memories that were assaulting him now. The Time War stayed locked away in his memory most of the time. Sometimes, he could barely remember that he had ever fought in the war. Sometimes, he could pretend that he had gone straight from being handsome and floppy-haired to all leather and ears. But now he could hear the cries of Daleks and the sounds of chaos in Arcadia, he could see the Skaro Degradations and the Possibility Engine, the Tear of Isha and the thousands of other superweapons that the Time Lords had used on the Daleks, indiscriminately wiping out cities, planets, even whole races who happened to be in the wrong place. The Daleks, it had all come down to the Daleks. There was no race in the universe that he hated more—there was no race in the universe that he hated so much that his hatred of them _defined_ who he was.

_I see into your soul, Doctor. I see beauty. I see divinity. I see HATRED._

_You ARE a good Dalek._

He seethed just thinking about it. If he was a good Dalek, then he should do what a good Dalek did best: kill other Daleks.

It was a short flight. The wheezing sound abated with a dull thunk that signaled materialization seconds after he pulled the lever.

Missy danced towards the door, swinging her umbrella. She crooked her finger at him.

The Doctor shoved past her and threw open the door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old watch—designed on the same principle as the one he had traded for a coat in Victorian London—and checked the time.

"4266," he told Missy. "The planet Androvenia in the Yvarniz System. Colonized by the Daleks…" He checked his watch again. "Two months ago."

He'd be willing to bet anything that it was, by the smell of the atmosphere and the way purple mists clustered here and there across the surface. He peered out into the mists, forever the color of grape, and thought he could hear the grating voices of Daleks and the cries of humans.

That sound had made his blood burn for nearly as long as he had been the Doctor. He tried to be nonviolent. He tried to bring peace. And all they ever did was come back more powerful and destroy the people he loved. So he made an exception to his nonviolence for them. If anyone deserved to be attacked by an army of Cybermen, it was the Daleks.

"Let's go," he growled at Missy.

Her eyes twinkled. "_Let's go_," she growled, imitating him.

The second they stepped from the time capsule, the alarm sounded.

"INTRUDER! SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!"

The Doctor flinched. Missy simply smiled wider and twirled her umbrella. He tried to turn the flinch into a scratch, but the harm was done.

"Give the order," she whispered in his ear.

As the Daleks, still in the pale blue casings of their early years, trundled through the mist, the Doctor raised the bracelet to this mouth. "Destroy the Daleks."

The Cybermen appeared so quickly even Missy jumped. The Daleks, for once, didn't stand a chance. The Doctor had known they wouldn't. It was too early in their timeline. They were still weak, pathetic. Their hatred still equaled the Doctor's, but their power was nothing compared to his now.

"EXTER—"

Three blasts from the Cybermen's wrist guns smashed the Daleks' armour and blew the hateful creature inside to bits.

"They've had a bit of an upgrade since the two of you last me," the Doctor said. "Or will meet, in your case."

The Cybermen clanked their way through the double doors of the TARDIS, forming up two-by-two outside. Half of them began to march off into the mist, while the other half clicked into fight mode and took off into the brilliant magenta sky, all searching for more Daleks to destroy. The sight, the Doctor reflected, would have terrified him had he not been the one to give them the order. He had seen too much destruction at the hands of the Cybermen.

Missy tugged on his arm. "Let's you and me go watch the fireworks! It's no good standing here with nothing to see."

They walked alongside the marching ranks of Cybermen. The more Cybermen exited the TARDIS, the more Daleks appeared to attempt to repel them. The Daleks were obliterated wherever they appeared. Missy slipped her arm through his, as if they were skipping through a field of flowers, no massacring Daleks. Then again, she probably saw little difference between the two activities.

The purple mist eventually cleared to reveal a cavernous mine. Humans in chains filled the mine, cutting into the red and orange rocks with primitive tools.

He felt sick. The Daleks didn't need humans to work these mines. They never did. They simply wanted the humans to suffer. They wanted to demonstrate their superiority by reducing those they conquered to this—slaves.

"Up here, love." Missy tugged on his arm.

There was a little outcropping of rock that overlooked the whole hellish pit. It must have been some sort of command station, because some broken Dalek casings littered the area and the putrid stink of fried Daleks mutants wafted through the air.

Missy sat down on a rock near the edge, folding her legs beneath herself elegantly. The Doctor couldn't help but be slightly impressed. He couldn't have been half as elegant as that, and he wasn't learning how to be a woman for the first time. The Master had always been able to outdo him in that sort of thing.

The Doctor didn't sit. He stood near the edge of the outcropping, watching as the Cybermen marauded through the mines, green laser fire and white extermination beams lit up the pit. Occasionally, a Dalek would get lucky and a Cyberman would fall, but they were outnumbered. It was an easy victory. A simple massacre.

Some of the humans were looking up at him, eyes wide. One, a small one who couldn't have been older than 30—or was it 10? He could never judge human ages—lifted up his arms as if in praise.

The Doctor staggered back. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. He'd been so caught up in the idea of revenge against the Daleks, he had forgotten what he was really doing here. He shouldn't be standing above these people as some sort of conqueror. The Doctor wasn't the general of some grand liberation army.

But he was. That was exactly what he was. And for the first time since they had arrived on Androvenia, he was properly ashamed of it. This was not him. This was not how it was supposed to be. He should have been standing among the humans in the pits, not above them. He should be fighting against the army, not bringing it along with him.

"It's less bloody this way," he said aloud. As if Missy cared. As if she could ever understand why he was wrong to do this, why he needed to justify himself somehow.

"Of course, love," she said. She got to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He was starting to think that she did it on purpose, that she knew it made him uncomfortable.

"No innocent lives were lost," he said. He shouldn't have wanted her to tell him he was right. He shouldn't have believed her opinion meant anything. She was bananas, evil. She admitted it herself. "Every other time I've met the Daleks, people have died fighting for freedom. I—not this time."

Missy still had her arms around his neck, and her face was inches from his. "You gonna give me a kiss to say thanks for all those things you just said, or do I have to stand here all day with my arms around your neck?"

That was what she wanted? Suddenly, he was feeling a bit off balance. Normally, he would have said no. He should have pulled away right now. But he was the general of an army of Cybermen that had just massacred a mine full of Daleks. To hell with what he should do. He aimed a kiss at her mouth, and managed to hit the target. Their lips connected for the briefest moment.

The taste of her remained on his lips. If she asked again, he thought, he'd kiss her for a little longer.

Right now, however, he had a more pressing matter. The people below them were clapping. A cheer sprang up from among them, carrying through the mine.

Missy, slightly breathless from their kiss, winked at him and bowed theatrically. She pushed him forward. "Go on, give a speech."

The Doctor turned his back on them.

"They want to hear a speech from their liberator, Doctor," Missy said, giving him innocent eyes. "Tell them they're free."

The Doctor spun around and glared down at the humans in the mine. "Stop clapping! I'm not your hero, and I'm not your liberator."

They clapped harder.

"Stop! Stop clapping, I mean it! I came here to destroy Daleks and I've done that. You're free. Go."

He stomped away from the edge.

Missy bowed again. "Aw…don't listen to him," she said, as if they were all five year olds. "We're your saviors! Of course you can clap."

The Doctor grabbed her by the arm. "We don't accept praise for this. We are going back to the TARDIS and flying away."

"Oh, but they're so—"

"Do as you are told!" he shouted, felling a pang as he remembered shouting the same thing at Clara.

She made a face at him, but danced off towards the TARDIS. As she disappeared into the purple mist, she turned around and called, "Oh, Doctor, you're so much more fun when you're angry."

The Doctor trudged after her. He called into the mists, where he knew she could hear him, "I want the coordinates of Gallifrey! I've conquered something—that's what you wanted. It's time for your end of the bargain."

When he reached the TARDIS door, Missy was leaning against it, her arms crossed across her chest. "But Doctor," she said. "What makes you think I would ever give you up so easily?"


	3. Emperor of a Thousand Galaxies (Part 1)

Notes:

Sorry for the long delay in updating! I've had a half finished draft sitting in my notebook for months, but it never seemed to become a finished chapter (I blame the EDAs, which I started reading in December). Also, this chapter is in two parts. Partly because I have two chapters set in the same place, partly because I couldn't think of two separate chapter titles, and partly because I didn't want to delay any longer in posting so I could post them both as one chapter. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

><p>"I took your army. I did everything you could have wanted. What more do you want?" the Twelfth Doctor leaned over the console, craning his head around the time rotor to glare at Missy.<p>

The pleasant hum of the TARDIS contrasted with the shouting voices. Both of them were dancing around the console, dodging the puddles of brilliant blue mud that the Cybermen had tracked back through the TARDIS. It was amazing that his old girl wasn't throwing a fit.

"Oh, please, those few Daleks? That was nothing, love."

The Doctor turned and paced in the other direction, keeping the console between him and her.

She appeared on the other side. "Oh come, Doctor. I want to see another planet. You wouldn't deny me that, would you?"

"Who do you think I am? A cabbie?" The Doctor said. "My TARDIS isn't your personal taxi service."

"My boyfriend."

"You have—" the Doctor stopped. "What did you say?"

Missy gave a little shrug. Her smile widened. "I think you're my boyfriend."

The Doctor just stared at her. It had been thousands of years since he and the Master—since the Master thought of him in anything approaching that capacity.

Hadn't it?

"Well," he said, looking down at the console and setting the coordinates without looking at what they lead to, just to have something to do with his hands. How the hell was he supposed to respond to that? "Well—"

"Well?"

Perhaps this would be a good time to kiss her again? He was sure he must have known this kind of thing in one of his previous incarnations, but now he felt like a bumbling idiot.

His hearts were racing. He had made a deal with Missy—an army for Gallifrey. That was all it had been – the deal, him compromising everything he believed in to get her to give him their home back. It wasn't anything more—was it?

"I—er—"

She was standing beside him now. He looked up into her dark eyes. Her whole expression had a wicked air about it—the arched eyebrows and crooked smile, the black paint (makeup, at a guess) round her eyes. And yet, she was beautiful. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time. Her whole aspect was breathtaking.

He really _was _Doctor Idiot! He'd spend a year living in a cage while the Master took over the world, and all he'd done afterwards was ask the Master to travel with him. Now, he had exactly that, and he was going to throw it away—for what? Because the Cybermen made him a little queasy?

This was his chance. His chance to truly show her the beauty of the universe. And maybe his chance to get her to continue calling him her boyfriend, however childish it was.

"Well," he turned his blushing face the way, "If you—if you say so. One more trip. Where do you want to go?"

"Oh Doctor," Missy said, grabbing his arm.

He felt their minds connect for a brief moment she tilted her head against his. Just the briefest touch, but there was so much contained in it—the world of her emotions, twisted and confused, as his old friend's had always been, but containing such genuine affection. "Thank you."

He pulled away. He had to maintain some semblance of coolness, otherwise he simply start tripping over his own feet like his previous incarnation.

She smiled that maniacal smile of hers at him. "I've got a teensy idea where to go. You'll love it. Promise."

She moved to the controls and began typing and flipping switches. The Doctor stayed where he'd been standing but craned his head. What was she doing?

"No, no peeking. You'll spoil the surprise!"

She flipped the dematerialization lever, and the Doctor ran to the controls anyway. He took a moment to decipher where they were headed. The Master had always been better at that sort of stuff that he had.

"The Tiberian Spiral Galaxy – the year—the year the Cyber Wars ended." He looked up, horrified. "Why would I want to go there?"

The TARDIS gave a mighty jolt, as if she agreed with him. He grabbed the console to keep from being thrown back onto the railing. They landed just as a stack of books that the Doctor had set out in front of one of his blackboards toppled down the steps and slid to a rest at his feet.

"Those were alphabetized," he said quietly, surveying the pile.

"You'll get over it, love. Come on, I want to show you your surprise."

"It isn't much of a surprise. I already know what it is." The Doctor fiddled with the scanner. He could never trust the Master, never. Of course she'd pick sometime like this. "This is the end of the Cyber Wars. The Tiberian Galaxy gets destroyed. It's a fixed point in time."

He glanced up from the scanner, which was showing him an entirely useless picture of the grey interior wall of some sort of ship or station. He was getting some odd gravity readings…he gave the scanner a tap, but they remained where they were. Missy was rolling her eyes at him.

"How can you ignore that? There are moments in history you simply cannot change!" He was losing his cool again. Again. "I can't—I can't go and fix anything here. Time would _fall apart_. Everything would _disintegrate_. And you know that."

And yet she just smiled enigmatically and opened the door with a squeak.

"Did you hear me? There's nothing we can do. The Tiberian Galaxy dies. Maybe you want to watch that, but why would you think that I—"

She raised a hand and put a finger on his lips. "Because you _can _change it. You have an army! Even the laws of time are no match for you."

"I've tried that before. It was a mistake," the Doctor said, turning to walk back to the console. "We're leaving—you can choose somewhere else."

It had been so long ago…the base on Mars… Adelaide Brooke… the flash of a gun through the front window. He couldn't change things, even when he tried.

"But Doctor," Missy said, her voice slightly higher. "If you leave, who will save me from these soldiers?"

The Doctor spun around. Missy was floating weightless in a tight corridor of rough grey metal paneling, her black skirt billowing around her knees. So those gravity readings _were _accurate.

The Doctor rushed to the door. Three soldiers, holding, as always, guns, floated in front of her. They clutched flexible straps that hung from the walls and ceiling. Judging by the tough looking grey and black uniforms, this was a human warship—but what had happened to the gravity?

"Freeze!" one of them shouted predictably.

The Doctor ignored him and instead held a hand out to Missy.

She tapped the TARDIS and floated further away. The Doctor wanted to punch something. He should have known by now that the Master could never be trusted. She knew how he operated. She knew that he would never leave her stranded with these soldiers. Which meant that, logically, he had to go and explore this fixed point in time.

He stepped out of the TARDIS, feeling that swooping feeling in the pit of his stomach as the gravity disappeared. His step propelled him too far through the zero-g and he crashed into Missy. It was all quite undignified.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, disentangling himself from Missy. "We came here by mistake. If you'll just let us get back to our…"

A soldier stepped between him and the TARDIS. His face was lined, so he was probably old by human standards, and contained two thin, twitchy eyes. There was some sort of insignia of rank on his jacket, which the Doctor might have recognized if he got a better look.

"Intruders. I'm—I'm not surprised," he said, pointing a shaking gun at Missy and the then Doctor, and back again. "Someone clear their…capsule…out of the secure area. Lovelace, Harting, get to it! Everyone else, bring these two with me."

Despite his barked orders, the soldier man was clearly quite nervous. Great. Just what the Doctor needed right now. Scared humans. Scared human _soldiers._ Scared human soldiers who, as usual, thought that they already knew why he was there. The Doctor was _not_ in the mood to put up with that today. "Put away the gun. Try again. Get it right."

He crossed his arms. He wasn't moving until they put those guns away.

A minute or so later, they were both handcuffed and being forcibly dragged away. The soldiers' guns were still trained on them.

The ship was exceedingly strange. After a few moments of traversing the thin corridors, he realized that its internal gravity was generated using rotational motion. The whole ship rotated about an axis that ran through its center, so that the gravity increased as you got further from the axis. Considering their weightlessness, they must have been right in the middle of the ship's central column when they'd landed. No wonder the TARDIS was confused.

But he was absolutely sure that this ship was obsolete by thousands of years. Rotational gravity had been scrapped long ago in favor of graviton generators. Even the metallic grey paneling was centuries off. Where had they dug up a wreck of a ship like this from? And why?

He grumbled to himself. Now he was curious, as Missy had known he would be. He simply had to know what was going on with this ship.

"A bit of advice, love," Missy said as they floated down the corridor—or was it up the corridor? "If you haven't got the gun, don't be the rude one."

"I'm always the rude one," he snapped back.

Missy looked so proud of him. He could feel a blush spreading up his face.

Then she snapped back to a more businesslike air. "Of course, a few of those Cybermen back in your TARDIS would have been adequate to get us out of this."

The soldiers shoving them forwards suddenly stopped at the word "Cybermen."

The Doctor noticed that he was sinking towards the ground, and put out a foot to support himself. The gravity was increasing. Then he turned to Missy. "I'm not involving them. This is a fixed point in time. We can't have them stomping all over it."

The nervous officer suddenly shoved the Doctor against the wall. He pressed his gun to the Doctor's temple. It was unpleasantly cold. Why couldn't they make the tips of their guns out of something with a lower heat capacity? It would make these sorts of things much less unpleasant.

"I knew it couldn't just be the two of you. The Cyberiad would do anything to get their hands on this ship." The officer took a deep breath. "You are going to tell me right now where these Cybermen are on our ship and you are going to tell us how we can dispose of them. And you're going to do it quickly."

Valuable to the Cyberiad? An idea came to the Doctor. Could this be _the_ ship….? He pushed off the ground and floated a little ways into the air before slowly sinking back down, his brow furrowed, before saying aloud, "Nope. Can't be."

"What?"

"Mr.—"

"General," the nervous officer immediately corrected him. "General Lin of the Tiberian Galactic Forces."

Lin. Lin, Lin—he was sure he'd heard of a General Lin at some point.

"General Lin, what's wrong with your gravity?"

Lin, almost unconsciously, pushed off the ground slightly and let himself sink. "Nothing's wrong with our gravity." He steadied his gun. "Is that what your Cybermen are doing here? Here to sabotage our environmental systems?" He turned to the woman nearest him. "Manning, Jenkins, Powell, do a full sweep of life support and environment. Now!"

The three soldiers hurried off with that odd jumping and kicking motion necessary in extremely low gravity. There were only about five or so soldiers left with them now.

The Doctor didn't bother correcting the mistaken general. If he wanted to send his troops on wild goose chases, it wasn't his problem. "Your gravity is thousands of years out of date. Where did you get this ship from?"

"The technical specifications of our ship are not relevant," Lin said. "Where are the Cybermen?"

"Nowhere. We didn't bring any _Cybermen_ onto your ship. We don't even want to _be_ here!"

General Lin fired a blast into the wall just over the Doctor's shoulder. The energy from the weapon dissipated into the metal wall, which was suddenly hot to the touch. The Doctor jumped forward as his jacket sizzled.

"Next time, that'll be your heart getting fried," Lin said. "Where are the Cybermen?"

There was something the Doctor was missing. Something that didn't add up. And why did the name Lin sound so familiar?

The realization came to him all at once. "I understand!" the Doctor shouted. "It's a suicide mission!"

Lin's face drained of color.

"You're driving the oldest ship in the fleet because it's the only one you could spare to get blown to pieces. That's where I know your name. General Lin, the one who ended it all. You're here to plant an explosive device straight into the center of the galaxy and then—well, you'd never get out of range in time. The galaxy goes up and you go with it." The Doctor's voice grew softer. "Better that way. No sleepless nights remembering all the children who died to end the Cyber Wars. No guilt to the end of your days wondering if there could have been another way. Just set the charge and you go up with it."

"We know what we're sacrificing to end this war. We've assessed the costs. They were deemed acceptable. This is our—our only option." General Lin said. The Doctor wasn't sure he'd ever heard someone say something so concrete with less certainty. Then, almost as an afterthought, Lin added, "The Cyberiad wouldn't have sent you here if they didn't know our mission. I don't know how you received this information, but it doesn't matter now."

"I'm not working for the Cyberiad," the Doctor said.

"No, he's just got a big bad Cyberman army waiting in his ship to come out and attack whomever he pleases. He's simply too modest to admit it."

General Lin didn't seem to know what to say. "Who is this woman?" he demanded of the Doctor.

"Still in the room," Missy said. "I'm Missy—short for Mistress. This is my boyfriend, the Doctor."

Lin turned his gun on her. The Doctor attempted to knock it out of his hands, but with his wrists cuffed, all he managed was to crash into Lin. Two soldiers surged forward and pulled him back. Someone pointing a gun at her brought back one too many memories of that poor woman—Lucy Saxon….

"Okay, Mistress—"

"Oh, please, call me Missy."

"Okay, Mistress Missy, you're going to—"

"I'm going to? It's his army. Ask him."

She was doing this intentionally. Putting them in danger to force him to use the army. Well, he wouldn't.

"Sir," one of the soldiers beside Lin spoke for the first time.

"What, Pates?"

"Sir, I've just scanned both of them. Neither has any mental link to the Cyberiad. If this Doctor has control of a Cyberman army, it would be through a piece of technology that links him them, probably on his person."

It appeared Christmas had come early for General Lin. He motioned to two soldiers. "Search them."

It was an uncomfortable few minutes. The Doctor hated people touching him at the best of times, but the two soldiers rummaging through his pockets was far, far worse. In the final assessment, they came up with a half-eaten package of biscuits, a pair of hyperfractal sunglasses, a signed copy of _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, two medallions from the Festival of Offerings, his sonic screwdriver, and—of course—the control bracelet.

From Missy, they got the vaporization device that she used just as frequently to take selfies as vaporize people and a squashed rose with a dried brown stem. He stared at it. Why the hell would someone carry around a dead rose?

It only took General Lin a few moments to figure out how the control bracelet worked, his eyes wide in wonder. The Doctor cursed himself for not locking the TARDIS doors to the outside. No one could get _in_, but that didn't stop the Cybermen from getting _out_. If he ever got the chance, he'd have to fix that feature.

But there was nothing to be done now. The Doctor listened helplessly as the crashing steps of the Cybermen drew closer and closer, muffled by their relative weightlessness. It was more of the creak and rustle of metal legs than the honest stomping he was used to. The group of soldiers all lifted their guns. General Lin was white as a sheet.

The Cybermen stopped at the end of the corridor, their metallic bodies perfectly still. The Doctor knew they were still pouring out of the TARDIS, filling up the ship. He made a lunge for the bracelet as well as he could with his hands cuffed, but was roughly pulled back by one of the soldiers.

The Cybermen spoke. "General Lin. We await your orders."

Lin looked the Cyberman up and down. He turned to the man nearest him. "A real Cyberman army..." he breathed. "At our command. Forget just winning the Cyber Wars. We could expand the human empire to a million galaxies! We could do anything!"

The Doctor and Missy looked at each other. Despite the number of schemes the Master had come up with to destroy large parts of the universe, the Doctor had a feeling that even she didn't want a bunch of scared humans in charge of an all-powerful army.

"The second we get out of here," the Doctor said. "I'm throwing that army into a supernova."

Missy, for the first time, looked genuinely frightened. "If we do get out of here."


End file.
